Choosing Optimal College Essay Heading

It might sound trivial at first, but all the small details in your essay count – including your college essay heading. Naturally, what matters most is the body of your essay, but overlooking the small details of your college essay is like overlooking the small details when making a movie. It’s kinda like saying, ‘oh, the first five minutes don’t really matter because people only care about the middle bit.’ Or it’s like making a cappuccino but failing to sprinkle some chocolate and marshmallows on top. People like that kind of thing. They like the small details. They like your college essay heading too.

In fact, when you think about it, a good heading for a college essay is one of the most important details. Because the heading is the first thing the tutors will see. If they see, “Essay,” what will they think of you? Moreover, how is that going to whet their appetite for the rest of the essay? Think of it like the headline for a news story of an article. Most of us read articles because we like the headline. We’re drawn in by those magical few words that speak to us. A bad headline just makes us turn away.

Similarly, your heading for college essay needs to be good. It can’t be bad. It can’t be “My College Essay.” It can’t even be, “College Application Essay.” That’s boring and it says you’re boring too. To help you choose an optimal college application essay heading, you could do much worse than reread those article headlines you’ve been drawn in by in the past. They hint at what’s to come – they spark a readers’ interest by giving a little bit away, but saving the best bits for later.

How To Come Up With A Good Heading For A College Essay

Firstly, you need to know your theme inside out. Knowing your theme helps you to create a title that matches your theme. Once you’ve understood your theme, you can brainstorm some words related to the theme.

Let’s say you’ve written an article about how being bullied at school made you the strong person you are today. Your theme, then, is a universal theme and could be: How setbacks make us stronger. Or: The power of overcoming obstacles. Or: Self-improvement through adversity.

These are all good themes. So what you need to do next is make a list of the words that spring to mind in relation to your theme. Words like: Bullied, Strength, Overcome, Endurance, School Playground, Stronger, Obstacle, Hurt, Gangs, Growing Up, Perseverance, Improvement, Lessons Learned, Friends, Childhood, and so on.

To help make your words come alive (because at the moment they all seem a bit lofty and a bit mundane, right), you can now either try to string them together, or slot them into pop culture phrases – such as popular books and songs. You could even slot them into a cliche. The key is to make your theme, words – and thus college essay heading – stand out. You need to grab attention. Let’s have a quick look at some examples:

Stronger Than Yesterday

Strength To Overcome

Being Grown Up Is Better Than Growing Up

School’s Out Forever (song title)

In your heading for college essay, you need to keep it short and to-the-point and you need to allude – metaphorically preferably, but also literally if you want – to your subject matter. The main thing to remember is to not create a college application essay heading that is a bit of a red herring and doesn’t give the audience (the tutors!) what they’re expecting.

And if you’re still really stuck for an optimal heading for a college essay, keep coming up with words tied to your theme and tap them into Google. Whichever word you tap into Google will instantly be met with suggestions – these are key words. Perhaps they can inspire you too! For example, if you tap in ‘strength …’ Google suggests ’Strength and Weakness’ and ’Strength and Honour.’

If you require further help with your college essay, why not visit our website further today to see what more we can do for you?